FORMER South African president Nelson Mandela was holding intensive talks in Tanzania in a last-minute bid to bridge deep gaps among Burundi’s warring political factions. With only one day left before a historic power-sharing deal is due to be signed, he was pressing all sides to overcome their differences. Tanzanian officials in Arusha said Mandela […]

AT least 45 people were killed when a bus plunged off a bridge in eastern Kenya on Thursday night. About 27 people survived the accident, the second transport disaster to hit Kenya in a week, but the death toll was expected to rise to at least 50. The bus, with an official capacity of 65, […]

THE Kenyan government has introduced a bill to target corruption and economic crimes in an effort to appease the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The introduction of the bill was a key condition for the resumption of IMF lending, suspended three years ago on the grounds of rampant official corruption and economic mismanagement. Meanwhile, Kenyan members […]

James Wood Experience by Martin Amis (Jonathan Cape) Experience is a beautiful, and beautifully strange book, and it is unlike anything one expected. One feared a trough of plaint: either a sad, Gosse-like reckoning with the father; or an angry, journalistic reckoning with those journalists who have hunted Amis from tooth to tooth. But Experience […]

communist Dale McKinley Crossfire I have been expelled from the South African Communist Party for being a committed, critical communist. That is really the gist behind the SACP central committee’s decision to throw me out of the ranks of the organisation, no matter the cleverly argued rationalisations presented by Jeremy Cronin (“Setting the ‘free thinker’ […]

A fight for the mineral-rich Richtersveld is pitting a small community against the state and its diamond mine Alexkor Barry Streek Three high-powered legal teams are squaring up the in the remote Northern Cape town of Kubus for one of the country’s most significant land claims battles. Communities in the Richtersveld are seeking to have […]

Ntuthuko Maphumulo soccer On paper Carlos Queiroz is one of the best coaches ever to set foot in South Africa. He is known as the “professor” in Portugal, but despite his outstanding achievements he was not well known in Africa until world ruling body Fifa recommended him to the South African Football Association (Safa) as […]

Khadija Magardie A Free State school principal who wrote acid testimonials for a group of matric pupils has dashed the hopes of the youngsters of studying further or getting jobs after school. The letters of reference from the poisoned pen of the principal of Diphetoho High School, in Botha-ville, near Kroonstad, conclude with the principal’s […]

The wicketkeeper’s desire to play for South Africa is in contrast to other players’ apathy Peter Robinson You really have to hand it to Nic Pothas. After waiting for what must have seemed like most of his life to play for South Africa (or most of the 1990s, anyway) he was finally given his chance […]